What do the Olympic opening ceremony, drag queens, and Shakespeare have in common?

Linguistic theorists such as Judith Butler, Jean Baudrillard, and Guy Debord have all conjectured that we engage daily in performances that obscure the line between illusion and reality. These performances both re-affirm and challenge society’s values, boundaries, and taboos. By analyzing these spectacles, we can question the relationship between performance and the “real,” with the hopes of discovering the motivations behind these seductive visions.

In a society dominated by media constructions of our cultural values, it is more important than ever to evaluate the role that spectacle plays. What is the social significance of illusions – to inspire change, to help us distinguish the values most important to us, or to help us escape?

The goal of this conference will be to bring the conversation into a contemporary context. How are social anxieties personified in the spectacle of monstrosity? What role do today’s avatars, clones, and digital doppelgangers play in our conceptions of our “real” selves? How has the relationship between performance and the real changed since Shakespeare?